Reply by 8iowa

With very small space to work in, I purchased a Shopsmith 500 in 1983. Included were the bandsaw and jointer. My son and I had this machine in almost constant use, and as our skills increased, we added the dust collector and the planer. There is no way we could have accomplished so many tasks with the limited number of stand alone tools that would conceively fit in such limited space. In ‘05 we moved to Gainesville Florida and this Shopsmith, now fully upgraded to Power Pro MK7 is still situated in only 194 sq ft. All of my original tools are still in use. Shopsmith’s customer support is second to none.

When I built my 24’x28’ dream workshop in the Upper Peninsula, I had space for stand alone tools, but I decided to make it a two Shopsmith workplace. One Shopsmith, a conventional 520 is set up most of the time as a saw with the Incra 5000 sled. The other Shopsmith, converted to Power Pro, does almost everything else. Those who are critical of the Shopsmith, have not seen the Power Pro, double tilt, MK7 in action.

I’ve always found it humorous that some complain that the Shopsmith makes one “plan ahead”.